Katie and William

Heaven knows that I love it when a bride makes choices that are different from the norm. So when Katie approached me with a couple of REALLY different ideas, I was hooked. Katie had very little flower knowledge, but she knew that she wanted something that had never been done before, her colors were bright and vivid, and she had some stone and wood accents created by her father that she wanted to incorporate into the centerpieces. I can work with that! The only other restriction that she had was a hard-rocking fiance named William who was sporting waist-length hair, multiple piercings and tats including sleeves, and a very small desire to deal with flowers even on his wedding day. Hmm. So we need to 'man up' the flowers, so to speak? Challange accepted!

We used bright red and yellow sunflowers, violet orchids, blue thistle, spiney protea pins, and celocia...it's the one that looks like brains! I even included a small yellow sphere called a billy ball in honor of the groom. Weeds, tropicals, brains and balls?...add in some silver metal wrapping around the flower fun, and we ended up with some truly different, unique and incredibly cool arrangements! Thanks again, Katie for the awesome experience, and you too, William, for enjoying the manliness with us!



For more flower fun visit my Florilista website!

Credit where due...

My husband was the initial photographer on the Vegas shoot, but was really magnanimus enough to share the time with a couple of other photographers attending the same convention who had a workshop that they needed to fill. Julie Parker and her cute crew joined along for a couple of our first locations and then got Andrea and John to go back out later on (John had ditched the suit by then, but Andrea took every opportunity to flash the eyes, hair, shoes and glam!) and they got some more great photos. Julie is so great in her fashion focus photography, and I'm so flattered that she mentioned my flowers in her blog of the fun.

More of my hubby's great photos to come, but enjoy a different look at the fashion side of Vegas Bling!

For more flower fun visit my Florilista website!

Peacock Bling in Vegas

John and Andrea were married in a quick Vegas ceremony 14 years ago. This weekend found them in Vegas again, but this time they had a designer dress, custom suit, fashionable flowers, and a fantastic photographer!

I was lucky enough to get to put together the flowers for the shoots, and the only requests Andrea gave me were peacock feathers and bling! YAY! I couldn't narrow down the design ideas, so I built one bouquet of simple dark purple lilies and aspadistra leaves, with golden brown trailing beads and feathers tied in purple and green ribbons. The other bouquet utilized a silver holder and had cybidium orchids, cream lilies tinged in purple/pink, orange spray roses, plum freesia, and antique green hydrangea. There were silver and clear beaded leaves, more peacock feathers, and tiny diamond butterflies that I made to hover over some of the roses. I had way too much fun!

You know it's good when the bride can't decide which one to carry and so shoots with both bouquets! Great fun!

Thanks so much to John and Andrea for all of the Vegas fun, and for being such great fun to shoot!

For more flower fun visit my Florilista website!

I Scoured The Valley!

My wholesaler is awesome. Anytime I order flowers, and run the six blocks over to their location to pick them up, I can rest assured that anything else I may possibly need will also be there waiting for me. Ribbons, pins, floral tape, vases, foam...ANYTHING. They have a perfectly appointed and fully stocked bunch of shelves that carry everything from fake flowers to feathers, and baubles to butterflies. Well, for the first time in four years, today they didn't have what I needed. Ack! Apparently, the feather supplier had come in that week at a crazy busy moment for the shop, and in the press, the peacock feathers were forgotten. Not a single turqouise eye peering at me from any corner of the store. Curses!!! What to do?

I'm heading to Las Vegas tomorrow for a fashion shoot on Saturday, followed by a bridal shoot on Monday. My bride for Monday had only two requests...Peacock Feathers and Sparkles! I have several options on the sparkles, but I only had four peacock feathers in hand, so the search began. Even if my wholesaler didn't have them this time, I had to find them somewhere.

Several stores that I tried had no feathers, and the ones that did carry them were hugely overpriced. I finally found exactly what I needed at a Michael's craft store of all places, out in the midst of West Valley, Utah. (West Side...Represent!) Now my bags are packed, my floral sheers are sharpened, and I'm confident that this new wholesaler (recommended for freshness by my current wholesaler) in Vegas will have lovely flowers for me bright at early on Monday morning. Ahh. My drive tomorrow will be so much more enjoyable now, and I can't wait to post the pics of the peacock fun!

For more flower fun visit my Florilista website!